So my laptop just caught fire

edited January 2015 in Hardware
I was on google chrome just browsing around, and all of a sudden, my laptop just freezes. Nothing responds for about 10 minutes, so I try to shut it off via the power button, and all of a sudden there's smoke, everywhere, and shortly after, flames.
Its thrown away now, so no chance fixing it, but what could have caused this? This was on a ceramic tile floor, not a carpet by the way, and this laptop was a Dell Inspiron E1505.
One thing that I should also mention is that this laptop was not overheating.

Comments

  • I was on google chrome just browsing around, and all of a sudden, my laptop just freezes. Nothing responds for about 10 minutes, so I try to shut it off via the power button, and all of a sudden there's smoke, everywhere, and shortly after, flames.
    Its thrown away now, so no chance fixing it, but what could have caused this? This was on a ceramic tile floor, not a carpet by the way, and this laptop was a Dell Inspiron E1505.
    One thing that I should also mention is that this laptop was not overheating.
    Might have been the battery, or a failed capacitor. The failed capacitor should not have caused flames (just popping sounds and smoke) so I'd say the battery.
  • noone wrote:
    I was on google chrome just browsing around, and all of a sudden, my laptop just freezes. Nothing responds for about 10 minutes, so I try to shut it off via the power button, and all of a sudden there's smoke, everywhere, and shortly after, flames.
    Its thrown away now, so no chance fixing it, but what could have caused this? This was on a ceramic tile floor, not a carpet by the way, and this laptop was a Dell Inspiron E1505.
    One thing that I should also mention is that this laptop was not overheating.
    Might have been the battery, or a failed capacitor. The failed capacitor should not have caused flames (just popping sounds and smoke) so I'd say the battery.

    The battery's in pristine condition, the smoke and flames actually started burning from the top left of the laptop, just below the screen, which is where a heat sink is, specifically a heat sink for the CPU. I've looked this up to see if this is a chronic issue of some kind, and I found absolutely nothing.
  • Was there a lot of dust on the heat sink. The heat sink could of gotten hot enough to start the dust on fire.
  • Was the base overheating? Of it was how much was it overheating?
  • Since you've thrown it away, there's not much chance of getting an exact answer. So all we could do is speculate.
  • Was the base overheating? Of it was how much was it overheating?

    It wasn't overheating at all, it just suddenly caught fire.
  • BlueSun wrote:
    Since you've thrown it away, there's not much chance of getting an exact answer. So all we could do is speculate.

    That is true, but I usually dont keep stuff that randomly catches fire XD
    Flames started to appear from the heat sink, practically melted it, and that was all she wrote. Being a 5+ year old laptop, not really worth getting it replaced.
    However, about a month ago, I do remember the power button sparking and shutting off the laptop, which led me to believe that a power strip of mine had failed, clearly that wasn't the case.
  • Melted the heatsink? Most heatsinks are aluminium or copper. So your laptop caught fire, and heated to well over 600C in a few seconds?
  • BOD wrote:
    Melted the heatsink? Most heatsinks are aluminium or copper. So your laptop caught fire, and heated to well over 600C in a few seconds?

    Well this one must be a special exception, then, I doubt this one was Aluminum.
  • Dell Inspiron laptops are actually famous for busting into flames. In 2006 at a Japanese conference, a Dell Inspiron laptop went into flames out of nowhere. In July of this year in Philly, a woman was playing Solitaire on her Dell Inspiron and it caught fire. Huh...
  • piefav2 wrote:
    Dell Inspiron laptops are actually famous for busting into flames. In 2006 at a Japanese conference, a Dell Inspiron laptop went into flames out of nowhere. In July of this year in Philly, a woman was playing Solitaire on her Dell Inspiron and it caught fire. Huh...

    Solitare... Burts into flames when you win a game
  • piefav2 wrote:
    Dell Inspiron laptops are actually famous for busting into flames. In 2006 at a Japanese conference, a Dell Inspiron laptop went into flames out of nowhere. In July of this year in Philly, a woman was playing Solitaire on her Dell Inspiron and it caught fire. Huh...

    Solitare... Burts into flames when you win a game

    XD in this case, it was Google Chrome, too good for the Dell.
  • piefav2 wrote:
    Dell Inspiron laptops are actually famous for busting into flames. In 2006 at a Japanese conference, a Dell Inspiron laptop went into flames out of nowhere. In July of this year in Philly, a woman was playing Solitaire on her Dell Inspiron and it caught fire. Huh...

    Solitare... Burts into flames when you win a game

    XD in this case, it was Google Chrome, too good for the Dell.


    Usually its Solitare. I mean come on you need a supercomputer to run that shit.


    And anyway id salvage the ram and hdd for spares if it isnt to late to get it back out of the trash
  • Usually its Solitare. I mean come on you need a supercomputer to run that shit.

    I thought supercomputers were just for playing chess, tic-tac-toe, and my personal favorite, global thermonuclear war?

    5ih.jpg
  • Kirk wrote:
    Usually its Solitare. I mean come on you need a supercomputer to run that shit.

    I thought supercomputers were just for playing chess, tic-tac-toe, and my personal favorite, global thermonuclear war?

    5ih.jpg
    neon_no-no-no_macro_neon-la-materia-luminosa-dell_arte_collabcubed.jpg
  • piefav2 wrote:
    Dell Inspiron laptops are actually famous for busting into flames. In 2006 at a Japanese conference, a Dell Inspiron laptop went into flames out of nowhere. In July of this year in Philly, a woman was playing Solitaire on her Dell Inspiron and it caught fire. Huh...

    Solitare... Burts into flames when you win a game

    XD in this case, it was Google Chrome, too good for the Dell.


    Usually its Solitare. I mean come on you need a supercomputer to run that shit.


    And anyway id salvage the ram and hdd for spares if it isnt to late to get it back out of the trash

    I salvaged everything except the CPU, which probably burned along with its heat sink.
  • Kirk wrote:
    Usually its Solitare. I mean come on you need a supercomputer to run that shit.

    I thought supercomputers were just for playing chess, tic-tac-toe, and my personal favorite, global thermonuclear war?

    5ih.jpg

    I'd get one, if someone handed me 5 million dollars.
  • I honestly doubt this story. I've had a system catch fire before, a dust fire, and after I put it out, the system was fine. No freeze, it was just really hot and smoke came out of the heatsink. I obviously, yanno, cleaned the heatsink, but after that it was fine. If anything maybe your power strip had a short in it..
  • I honestly doubt this story. I've had a system catch fire before, a dust fire, and after I put it out, the system was fine. No freeze, it was just really hot and smoke came out of the heatsink. I obviously, yanno, cleaned the heatsink, but after that it was fine. If anything maybe your power strip had a short in it..

    That's very possible. I honestly think it might have been dust buried in the heat sink (since the body of it was broken)
  • piefav2 wrote:
    Dell Inspiron laptops are actually famous for busting into flames. In 2006 at a Japanese conference, a Dell Inspiron laptop went into flames out of nowhere. In July of this year in Philly, a woman was playing Solitaire on her Dell Inspiron and it caught fire. Huh...
    I should probably be afraid then, posting from a 15 year old Inspiron 7500...

    I've never actually had any heat issues, or catching sire issues with this system though. must be the newer Inspirons that have these problems.
  • Ham62 wrote:
    I've never actually had any heat issues, or catching sire issues with this system though. must be the newer Inspirons that have these problems.
    More likely it's the newer generation of users that brutally kill perfectly fine electronics.

    The best laptop ad I have ever seen stated that the laptop had a display problem, but it could be temporarily corrected by tucking the laptop in a blanket for a while... Since a proper procedure with an oven could (apparently) save the machine, it's saddening that the ignorant owner was toasting the whole machine in such manner.

    I wish laptop manufacturers would design their products so that their insides could easily be cleaned from dust. Blowing air into a poorly designed laptop probably pushes more dust further inside the machine than it actually gets out.
  • tatte wrote:
    I wish laptop manufacturers would design their products so that their insides could easily be cleaned from dust. Blowing air into a poorly designed laptop probably pushes more dust further inside the machine than it actually gets out.

    Pointless.

    Unless you're using your laptop in the middle of a Saharan dust storm most days, by the time enough household dust has engulfed the machine, the user will have upgraded to a newer machine.

    The cheapness of modern electronics has made maintenance of 99% of devices a waste of time.
  • BOD wrote:
    tatte wrote:
    I wish laptop manufacturers would design their products so that their insides could easily be cleaned from dust. Blowing air into a poorly designed laptop probably pushes more dust further inside the machine than it actually gets out.

    Pointless.

    Unless you're using your laptop in the middle of a Saharan dust storm most days, by the time enough household dust has engulfed the machine, the user will have upgraded to a newer machine.

    The cheapness of modern electronics has made maintenance of 99% of devices a waste of time.

    Right now I'm looking at a Lenovo as a replacement. I'm never buying a Dell again unless they pay more attention to cooling, remember the CPU heat sink on the Dell was the first to go.
  • tatte wrote:
    I wish laptop manufacturers would design their products so that their insides could easily be cleaned from dust. Blowing air into a poorly designed laptop probably pushes more dust further inside the machine than it actually gets out.

    If they designed their products to be cleanable/easily serviceable, then they wouldn't be able to make as much money off you. Todays computers are designed cheaply to not only save the manufacturer money, but make the user buy a computer more often.
    Right now I'm looking at a Lenovo as a replacement. I'm never buying a Dell again unless they pay more attention to cooling, remember the CPU heat sink on the Dell was the first to go.

    A ThinkPad would probably do you well, I am pretty sure they are still pretty well built, though the newest one I have tried was from ~2009. I doubt Dell will ever fix their laptops, all their laptops I can think of have been problematic for about a decade now. I don't think their desktop offerings are plagued or as plagued as their laptops though. I recall Dell laptops being much better built in the 90's than they are now. In a way, its sad that everything is just getting cheaper and cheaper.
  • psychobat wrote:
    its sad that everything is just getting cheaper and cheaper.


    If they are reliable and will last many years, then it wouldn't be such a bad thing for it to be cheaper.
  • dosbox wrote:
    psychobat wrote:
    its sad that everything is just getting cheaper and cheaper.


    If they are reliable and will last many years, then it wouldn't be such a bad thing for it to be cheaper.

    Yes, but it's a bad thing when it starts taking away from the overall quality of the computer. When I said that, I was more referring to cheaper build quality and less to actual price.

    I have nothing aganist cheap computers, just as long as it's a decent quality for what I paid for it. I have seen some cheap computers last many years before being retired, I just don't like the ones with so many cut corners that it isn't worth owning let alone using.
  • Quick update, I've just received a new laptop as a Christmas/birthday gift. The laptop is an HP 15-F010DX Laptop. Its got an i3 4010U, 4GB of RAM, 500GB hard drive, and a touchscreen.
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